"The Nazis did terrible evil but they had a sufficient sense of shame to try to hide it," he said. "These people boast about their evil, this is the extraordinary thing." The discussion came as the Australian government weighs up whether to join U.S. air strikes in Syria against the group.

The term "Nazis" immediately trended on Australian Twitter, as people expressed their disgust with the comparison.

This isn't the first time Abbott has reached for the National Socialists to make a point.

On the same radio station in September 2014, Abbott made a very similar argument about the terrorist group. "We’ve seen in the century just gone, the most unspeakable things happen, but the atrocities that were committed by the Nazis, by the communists and others, they were ashamed of them, they tried to cover them up," he explained. "This mob, by contrast, as soon as they’ve done something gruesome and ghastly and unspeakable, they’re advertising it on the internet for all to see."

He doesn't need the situation to rise to the level of horror exhibited by ISIS to break out the spectre of Hitler, however.

During question time in Australian parliament in March 2015, Abbott called the Labor Party leader Bill Shorten the "Dr Goebbels of economic policy," referring to Hitler's propaganda minister. He soon apologised and withdrew the statement,ABC News reported.

Jewish Member of Parliament Michael Danby walked out to show his objection. "It is silly to use an example of the ultimate evil in politics," Danby told the outlet. "He's the Prime Minister - he is supposed to have standards."

In February, Abbott also made an unfortunate semantic slip, accusing the Labor Party of causing a "holocaust" of job losses. "Under members opposite defence jobs in this country declined by 10%. There was a holocaust of jobs in defence industries under members opposite," he said, according toFairfax Media.

He later retracted the remark.

Surely we can agree it's time all politicians retired the Nazis from their verbal repertoire.

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